


Pots

by not_laurence



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_laurence/pseuds/not_laurence
Summary: Ivan and Ekaterin give one another gifts.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Pots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alessandriana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandriana/gifts).



> **Prompt:** Ivan helping Ekaterin find supplies for her gardens? They get into some kind of escalating 'horrible gift exchange' in the wake of that vase he sent them?
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I do not own these characters and make no profit by them.

Ivan spent two years on Ylla; but it really only took him six months to exhaust all the possibilities of his new role. In the past he had never felt he had enough free time; now he began to realise there was such as thing as too much spare time. Of course, in the past he had been pursuing an active nightlife with whichever female had struck his fancy; now he was a staid married man with no need to exhaust himself dancing the whole night sublimating his sexual urges. He went home to Tej every evening (and often in the afternoons as well). Thought Tej had her own pursuits. A few months after their arrival she took up pottery classes in what he thought was a futile effort to combat boredom, but she said was following her inner muse. The flora and fauna of Ylla were lush and abundant, but wholly inimical to beings genetically descended from Earth-human. Yet human beings thrived here, having begun terraforming this world centuries ago when Ylla was first discovered and colonised in the great diaspora from Earth and then lost and forgotten a few years later after an interstellar war disrupted galactic communication. The parallel with Barrayar was obvious, though clearly Ylla’s development had taken a profoundly different path. Was it history? Or biology? Intrigued, Ivan began a correspondence course through Vorbarr Sultana University; he took up horticulture as a hobby (bonsai to be precise). 

In due course, Ivan potted a fern (well it wasn’t really a fern, though it did resemble an Earth staghorn, albeit one in brilliant orange with bright blue spots) in one of his wife’s more fanciful pots and shipped it as a Winterfair gift to Miles, who did not send a thank you note (polite or otherwise). His wife, however, sent a long chatty letter full of news about Helen, Sasha and Elizabeth. Blessedly she skipped the detail about potty training, but allowed him some insight into his cousin’s reactions to the parcel. 

“Miles says he’s not sure what he did to deserve it, but never fear, I have found good use for the flowerpot you sent,” wrote Ekaterin, “despite the colour clash between its somewhat lurid glaze and the dominant reds and pinks of native Barrayaran foliage. I received a new commission to design a garden to celebrate the talents of Clarice Cliff and it fits very nicely into that genre.” Ivan paused in his perusal of the letter to look up the artist, before he continued. 

“I took several cuttings from that amazing plant you sent and now have a good dozen which I am raising in different conditions to see which is optimum. Fortuitously, Enrique has discovered the species has a unique vitamin content which stimulates the butter bugs reproductive cycle. He has begun a series of experiments at his lab; Miles accepted an assignment to Pol.” Ivan smiled smugly when he read that. 

To his wife he merely said, in response to her anxious question about how Miles had received his gift, “I don’t know that my cousin has much appreciation for the arts but Ekaterin loved it; she made it the centrepiece in some new garden she’s been commissioned to design and can’t wait to have its pair.” He sent the pot’s twin to Miles as a birthday gift. Ekaterin returned a holo of a trio of pots grouped in a niche set behind a small pool of Koi carp. He took the hint and the next year sent a third pot, slightly larger than the other two, decorated with artistic swirls in purple and green.

Lovely though Ylla was, the opportunities it offered for advancement were quite limited. Ivan had completed his undergraduate degree in biology by the time his next posting came through. Earth was the other side of the galaxy (several wormhole jumps plus a tediously long journey in space-normal) from Barrayar. It was that bit too far from home to travel there and back in the course of the limited leave allowed to a military attaché to the diplomatic service. There were, however, several distinguished universities on old Earth, which afforded him the opportunity for postgraduate work in ecology. 

In his spare time he shopped; the ‘bargain basement’ had been born on Earth, and had grown over the centuries into one of the planet’s most notable shopping features. During the years he was posted there, Ivan sent several vases, and two enormous planters, each planted with strikingly weird carnivorous plants, all ostensibly gifts to his cousin My-Lord-Auditor. Who never did him the courtesy of sending a reply. Ekaterin, however, always promptly returned seedlings of Barrayaran native plantlife (complete with detailed instructions for their propagation). When he arrived the embassy’s conservatory was an uninviting place – black and white marble floors punctuated with a half-dozen large brass planters, each with a sickly-looking banana tree. Within two years it has been transformed into a showcase of native Barrayaran horticulture. When he won an award for his Master’s dissertation on terraforming strategies, Ivan sent the blue rosette affixed to a simple grey urn with classic lines, this time to Ekaterin rather than his cousin. He had a small plaque specially fixed to its base inscribed with Keats' ode. She responded by sending Ivan a slender volume of Barrayaran verse penned by Lord Esteban Vorpavanne in the Time of Isolation to accompany a holo of said urn filled with a riotous mixture of bloody puffwad and redcap violets. 

Not long after Ivan was sent to Eta Ceta; that posting had been only one year long but proved the most taxing. The Cetagandans prided themselves on their exquisite aesthetic sensibilities. It proved immensely difficult to locate anything suitable (Tej having long since given up potting in favour of raising their offspring) but eventually he found a nicely misshapen jug to send cousin Miles for his birthday. 

The next year Gregor finally relented and Ivan and Tej were allowed to return to Barrayar for the Emperor’s Birthday Celebrations. They arrived just in time to join Gregor’s main reception. The next day his mother hosted a family get-together. Ivan and Tej joined Miles and Ekaterin at his mother’s flat. After a magnificent meal, superbly catered by the second best chef in Vorbarr Sultana (Ma Kosti still holding the prize as best) they retired to Alys Vorpatril’s elegant roof garden for coffee and cake. 

Ivan blinked in shock as he gazed at the monstrosities of flower pots and window boxes in glaring bright colours that clashed horrendously, yet somehow, melded into a harmonious whole. 

“Don’t you like it, dear?” asked Alys Vorpatril solicitously. “Ekaterin was sure you would – particularly the urn.”


End file.
